


And Fear the Silence is the Voice of God

by FloraStuart



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloraStuart/pseuds/FloraStuart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd rolled the window down and let the water blow in his face to keep himself awake while the radio crackled tornado warnings and Sam practiced his worried frown. Five hours doing eighty out of Fort Dodge, staring down the gathering thunderheads and trying to remember how to pray.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Fear the Silence is the Voice of God

**Author's Note:**

> Kripke's, not mine. Please don't sue. Title is from Emmylou Harris' "The Pearl".
> 
> Thanks so much to Hossgal for reading this many times, and providing inspiration and food for the plotbunnies and for poking me to finish this! Huge thanks to Kernezelda and Hossgal for excellent betaing - you both rock! *g* This one is set immediately post- _Faith_ , and the majority of it was written before season two started - as a result, some canon details don't quite match up. Feedback and constructive criticism are welcome!

They leave Nebraska before noon, and don't stop until they hit the Mississippi.

Dean pulls into a motel lot just off the highway outside Dubuque, staggers a little getting out. They've been driving two days straight, switching off every six hours and sleeping in the car, and his legs are cramped and stiff.

"You okay?" Sam asks, as they grab their gear and head toward the office. Dean doesn't answer. It's the fifth time Sam's asked in two days, like a little kid thinking if he asks enough times, the answer will change.

While Dean pays for the room, Sam pulls out his phone, flips it open and stares at the call log. His jaw tightens.

Dean's been behind the wheel since dawn, heading east into pounding rain. He'd rolled the window down and let the water blow in his face to keep himself awake while the radio crackled tornado warnings and Sam practiced his worried frown. Five hours doing eighty out of Fort Dodge, staring down the gathering thunderheads and trying to remember how to pray.

They don't speak as they walk in silence across the misty parking lot. Dean turns away when Sam looks at him, unlocks the door and drops his duffel on the bed. The shirt he pulls out smells like smoke and old sweat, but it's cleaner than the one he's wearing and at least it doesn't have bloodstains.

Sam's still watching him, waiting, but Dean says only, "Dibs on the shower." He conducts a dignified retreat to the bathroom, shuts the door and stares at the rumpled clothes in his hands until he hears Sam's voice from the other room.

"Joshua? Hey, it's Sam."

Dean leans into the shower, twists the hot water on, then sheds his clothes and yanks the curtain shut. The steam smells like iron, like rust, and the water pressure's for crap, but he can't hear anything over the spray.

All the prayers Dean knows are in Latin, Dad's familiar cramped scrawl trailing across a page smudged with charcoal. Words he could rattle off in under thirty seconds by age ten, and no time to think about what they meant while he was trying to lay down salt and reload the twelve-gauge at the same time.

Sam might never believe it, but Dean knows enough about normal people to know Layla wasn't raised that way. It's still a foreign country to him, folding chairs on wet grass under a canvas tent while some guy talks about asking for emotional support from some invisible best friend in the sky.

When he shuts the water off, he can still hear Sam on the phone. "I know," Sam's saying. Dean pulls on his jeans, tugs the shirt over his head with a grimace, decides they're gonna have to do laundry in the morning. "You didn't know. It's okay."

He pushes the door open. Sam's standing by the window, doesn't look up. "Don't," Sam says, his voice sharp. Dean might have imagined the crack at the end. "Don't be sorry. I'm not."

Dean stops on the threshold, a heartbeat, two, then he sits heavily on the bed. Aging bedsprings creak in protest and Sam turns around, wide-eyed surprise quickly masked as he hangs up the phone.

"You done?"

"Your turn to get coffee tomorrow." Dean pointedly ignores Sam's hooded sweatshirt thrown on the bed. Early spring is still chilly, here, and it's been raining on and off all week, but damned if he needs Sam mothering him any more than he already has.

A minute's awkward silence, and Dean lies back on the covert, grabs the remote and turns the TV on mute. Flips through silent channels, a flood of flickering images, all saying nothing. Somewhere across the highway a train whistle calls, long and high and lonely.

Sam turns on his way to the bathroom and their eyes meet, locking together and sliding apart. "I'm _not_ ," Sam says, and he's got that same look he had at the hospital, lost and stubborn and so goddamn young Dean wants to shake him.

Instead, he settles for balling up the sweatshirt and throwing it at him. "Dude, you stink. Go on."

The door clicks shut, and Dean stares at the ceiling, waiting. Listening, but there's nothing but the hiss of water and the growl of trucks on the highway.

*

The last weeks of the last normal summer, before Sam started his senior year of high school, they'd left Colorado for the farmlands of northern Florida. Dad had heard of a bunch of cows dying off, the epidemic baffling the bigshots at the local university, and he'd decided to check it out.

Brought Sam and Dean down south so _they_ could check it out, more like. _Might be nothing_ , Dad had said. It had been a dry summer. But cattle deaths could be a sign of demonic activity. _Worth keeping an eye on_ , he'd said, and as soon as Sam was registered for school he'd left them behind to watch for other signs while he headed north on his own gig.

Dean had held high hopes for the place - Florida, in his mind, had meant white sand beaches, fast cars and girls in skimpy bathing suits. But they were nowhere near the ocean. Only the hot sun told him they were in Florida, the sun and the brown palmetto scrub and the 'gators that hid like floating logs in the canals at the side of the road. Even Liza, the cute blonde who'd invited Dean to come to church with her two days after they got there, was really only interested in the state of his soul.

It's not like Dean hadn't tried; Pastor Jim had pounded into Sam and Dean the basics of the faith their rituals were based on, and he'd told Liza all about how important church was when he was a kid (leaving out the part where they'd only gone to Mass at Jim's place a couple times each year, usually when they were out of holy water). He told her how much he loved hanging with Jim, how he could recite the Hail Mary and the Nicene Creed both in perfect Latin.

She hadn't been impressed.

_It's not about the words! You can't just - say a magic formula and drive the devil away!_ And she was right - words alone wouldn't drive out a violent spirit, but somehow he doubted she'd react well to hearing about salt lines and symbols on the floor, sage and crossroad dirt and holy water. _You can't earn your way out of damnation by lighting candles or praying words you don't even understand. You have to have the love of Jesus in your heart!_

And, probably, Dean figured, she thought you had to stay away from guys who wanted to get into your pants. Even guys who didn't carry silver bullets and notebooks full of occult symbols in the trunk.

They'd quit talking, after that. Just as well, Dean had tried to tell himself; he had plenty of work to keep him busy.

For once, Sam was less disappointed in the place than Dean was. He'd settled into school pretty well, and the local library had a decent supply of books, or so Sam said. Which didn't stop him from finding other things to bitch about - like helping Dean with the job. 

The job would turn out to be Dean's least concern. They got into a routine that September - up at four to pick up coffee, and Dean would drop Sam at school an hour early, as the grey predawn sky shaded to pink. From there it was an hour's drive out of town to the run-down cattle operation where he'd found work putting up pasture fences. Watching for signs of demonic activity in between chasing wayward steers off the rutted county road, while Sam took full advantage of Dad's absence to sign up for a fall course load Dad never would have approved.

Dean had forged the required signatures, resisted the urge to point out that taking three AP classes wouldn't leave Sam much time to help with their assigned research, and tried not to think too hard about what Sam thought he was doing, taking courses for college credit.

Sam talked about challenging himself, but he'd always sucked at lying to Dean and Dean could tell he'd set his hopes on something else. Something Dad would never agree to, and while Dean knew Dad was right on this one, he hated to see Sam's hopes dashed again.

Three weeks into the school year, and still he let Sam sit under a spreading oak and study after school, while he dragged the next two rolls of wire out of old man Wilson's pole barn. Dean dug the last few holes to the end of the property line while Sam curled up happily with his trig book, and didn't bitch about it too much as the sun slowly slid across the sky.

If Dean had learned anything in the past eighteen years, it was how to be grateful for the small things - a pretty girl's number, a full tank and a cold beer at the end of a long day, his family safe and close. Sam never understood that - always wanted what he knew he couldn't have, and it was damn frustrating watching Sam make himself miserable.

_He’ll get over it_ , Dean told himself, jamming the post-hole digger into the ground and resting his arms on the handles. Across the road, a skinny kid in ripped jeans was half-heartedly herding a bunch of black-and-white Holsteins toward the milking parlor, dawdling along the fenceline to gawk wistfully at the Impala. The cows swished their tails at the fat black flies, reluctant to leave the shade; one looked up, across the road, liquid brown eyes regarding Dean steadily, looking for all the world like any other ordinary cow. No demonic influence here. 

Sammy was still oblivious, now with a book of practice AP tests balanced on his knees. _Merck's Veterinary Manual_ and his Latin notebook lay untouched beside him. Dean wondered if Sam knew taking those tests cost almost a hundred dollars each, wondered where he thought they'd get that kind of money. Wiped sweat and grit from his forehead with the back of one hand, thought about how he was gonna get chewed out for letting Sammy get away with this kind of crap. 

He'd dragged the post over and dropped it in the hole when he saw them, black specks against the sun-washed sky, wheeling in a slow circle overhead and to the west. "Sam."

Sam didn't answer. Dean kicked loose dirt back into the hole, holding the post straight with one hand, not taking his eyes off the sky. "Sam." His brother ignored him as he tamped the dirt down around the post, ignored him until Dean picked up a clump of grass and loose dirt, threw it against the tree next to Sam's shoulder. 

"Dude, what the hell? I'm trying to study, here."

“Study that, dork." He jerked his chin toward the buzzards, squinting. "We should go check it out."

Sam looked up from his book, finally. "Sometimes cows just die, Dean." He went back to whatever he was reading.

Dean dropped the wire-stretcher, stalked over and snatched up the book. "We won't know 'til we take a look. C'mon."

Sam reached for the book, but Dean smirked and held it away from him, setting off at a jog across the pasture.

Dean unhooked Dad's EMF meter from his belt, then let out a breathless cackle when Sam cursed behind him, stumbling into a fresh cowpie.

He slowed, seeing a flash of white in the long grass. The EMF stayed silent while he ran it over the wide hipbones, the scattered ribs, bleached dry in the baking sun. The skull was a few yards off, tufts of yellow grass growing through the bottom of the jaw.

"Dean, that one's been dead for months."

He looked up at Sam's long-suffering sigh, noted that at least the kid had brought along the Latin notebook. Not that he thought they'd need it today. The readout screen was still dark; nothing here but ants, crawling out of one eye socket when he tapped on the forehead.

Dean stood, stared hungrily at the horizon, at the buzzards and the dark clouds massing above the treeline, the promise of rain.

The pasture was tall grass and scrub, unlike the short-cropped field across the road, so they didn't see the cow 'til they almost fell over her. They found her by the smell, that and the grating buzz of the flies. 

The red and white heifer was unmistakably dead, but the EMF insisted there was nothing supernatural here, even when Dean shook it and swore at it.

He wanted to stay longer, look for more bones, but Sam had that look on his face said there'd be a fight if he suggested it. The sun was finally sinking, and if they left now, they might be able to pick up beer and be back at the motel before dark, and he could wash the car. Weeks driving on dirt roads had left her black finish dull and covered with dust.

Dean led the way back to the fenceline, grabbed the AP workbooks before Sam could, and told him he'd study his damn Latin homework until they got back to the motel. Sam sulked half of the way back, before throwing down the notebook in disgust. "This is crap, Dean!"

Dean rolled his eyes. They were pushing forty, spraying clouds of dust behind them, but the breeze through the open windows was the first cool air Dean had felt since before sunrise. 

"He's got us practicing exorcisms and chasing imaginary demons 'cause he wants to keep us busy, doesn't want us to have time to do anything that's not hunting while he's gone."

"You don't know that." He hoped Sam was wrong, though he wouldn't put it past Dad. The EMF hadn't given him so much as a beep all day. Nearly a month of dealing with Sammy and this attitude, and Dean was itching to kill something. "And even if you're right, doesn't hurt to keep in practice." The next intersection was a paved road; Dean swung the car to the right, instead of back toward the motel. "So, practice."

"Where are we going?"

"Short cut."

Sam gave him a _look_ , set and sulky. "Dean -"

"You shut up." It was only a couple miles to the county line, and there had to be a place out there somewhere where a hard-working guy could get a beer. Or six.

"Dean, Dad said -"

This time Dean glared at him. "You gonna tell Dad what I've been doing?" _'Cause I got plenty to tell him about you, too, Sammy._

They pulled into a convenience store lot a quarter of an hour later, next to a white pick-up emblazoned with bold black letters on the driver’s side door: "I am the Lord your God; You shall have no other gods before Me.” A sticker running the length of the front bumper proclaimed, "Back to the Bible or Back to the Jungle".

"Not really going for 'subtle', there, are we?" Dean muttered, as disgusted with North Florida as he’d ever been since the day he'd discovered Dad had dumped them in a dry county. 

Sam shook his head with that mutinous look that said going to church and abstaining from alcohol and sex and all the other fun things God put on this Earth for people to enjoy was clearly normal around here, and so Sam would rather be part of that crowd than part of the batshit crazy Winchester family. Dean got out of the car.

The store was nearly empty. An older guy in a plaid shirt stood by the windows, pondering bags of chicken feed; two boys waited nearby, maybe sixteen and twelve, exchanging low-voiced insults and shoving playfully at each other behind the man's back. Dean suppressed a crooked smile, grabbed half a dozen Twinkies, a can of lighter fluid and two six-packs.

"Have you heard the good news about Jesus?"

The younger kid intercepted him halfway to the cash register, holding out a crookedly-folded leaflet. Dean almost rolled his eyes, stopped only by the wide-eyed earnest look on the kid's face. He looked too much like Sammy with his sixth-grade science fair project, just dying to explain the mysteries of dinosaur eggs to every parent who walked by.

THE FIRES OF HELL ARE WAITING FOR YOU!, announced the leaflet’s cover in bold black print. Dean blinked, raised both eyebrows. "That's the _good_ news?"

The kid just stared at him, at a loss for words. Dean wanted to ruffle his hair, take him aside and explain that there were so many more important things in life. The girl at the counter, for example, young and blonde and looking bored.

Sam walked by with a _don't start anything_ expression, and Dean nodded at the kid before heading toward the cashier, putting on his best grin. She rang him up with a polite smile but no real warmth, and Dean walked outside, discouraged.

Sam was on Dean as soon as the door banged shut behind him. "That's what you get for stealing the last of the chocolate donuts," Sam announced, jerking a thumb at the paper in Dean's hand.

"I hadn't had any yet!" Dean protested, sliding into the driver's seat as Sam snatched the pamphlet away and leaned his butt against the hood. "Get your ass in here, or I'm leaving you."

"'We are all sinners,'" Sam read as they left the parking lot, "'and we deserve eternal punishment.'"

Dean sighed in remembered disappointment; he'd heard this sort of thing before, only a few weeks ago at the little Baptist church just outside of town. "Well, there's a depressing way to look at the world."

"I know. I mean, _you_ , obviously -” Sam ducked as Dean swatted at the back of his head, but it was a halfhearted attempt. "'Through His death, all our sins are paid for; He gave His life so we could live forever with Him.'" Dean rolled his eyes as Sam went on; at least the kid wasn't sulking anymore. "'Are you ready to renounce the ways of sin and accept the gift of new life in Jesus Christ?'"

Dean thought about the afternoon clerk back at the motel. Thought about that waitress two months ago in Longmont, and that thing she could do with her tongue - "No." 

"'There is nothing you can do to earn your way out of damnation, no special words or rituals that will protect you from the powers of hell' - ha!" Sam flung the Latin notebook into the back seat with a triumphant smirk. "What am I wasting my time on this for?"

"'Cause if you learn all your empty, Satanically-inspired rituals properly, you might escape the eternal wrath of John Winchester," Dean replied promptly as they came to a stop at an intersection. He snatched the pamphlet away, scanning the next page. "'Speak straight from your heart. Tell Him what's really on your mind.' Who wrote this touchy-feely crap? 'Talk like you'd talk to your best friend'?"

"All those years of my life I wasted, learning how to conjugate Latin verbs, and the answer was right here!"

Closest thing Dean had to a friend was Sam. And he was pretty sure _bite me, smartass_ wasn't how a man was supposed to address his Creator. "You gonna try that next time we do an exorcism?”

Sam rolled his eyes, but Dean was just getting started. It was late, long shadows in the golden evening, and both were tired and punchy from too much sun.

"Dear God, I know I don't deserve to be saved from this demon, 'cause I'm a lazy bastard and I didn't do my Latin homework like my big brother told me to -"

Sam aimed a playful slug at Dean's arm, snickering helplessly.

*

The phone won't stop ringing.

Dean's been on the edge of sleep since they crossed the Mississippi, and every time he wakes, Sam's on the phone again. Damn thing won't let a man get a minute's rest, always manages to ring just as he's about to drift off. People he's never heard of call to wish him health and long life, people Dad hasn't talked to in years.

“Hey, listen, you haven't heard -" Silence stretches, thin and fragile. "You what?" Sam throws his head back, a blunt, humorless laugh. "Yeah, well, I'm sure he deserved it."

Dean knows that tone, a familiar bitterness that seemed to flavor all Sam's words in the months leading up to Stanford, and now it makes his chest ache. He grunts, gives up on sleeping and cracks his eyes open. Tries to think who's threatened to run Dad off with a shotgun most recently. "Bobby?"

Sam starts, then nods. "He says hey."

Dean nods, shrugs back down against his jacket.

The rain stops sometime after dark. Dean isn't sure if he was sleeping or not; they're in a rest stop, big rigs idling low and sleepy, taillights red and unblinking.

"Dean." Sam, his voice rough and sleepless, is only a silhouette against the lights around the restrooms.. "You want breakfast?"

"She wasn't scared." The words fall into silence. Sam doesn't say anything at first, but Dean sees his lips tighten. He knows what Sam’s thinking, remembers the lights in the parking lot going dark, one by one. For a minute he thinks Sam's actually going to ask: _what the fuck were you thinking? Why didn't you run?_

Instead Sam frowns, but it's thoughtful more than angry. "Maybe she knows something we don't." Dean rolls his eyes, and Sam gives him an exasperated glare. "Come on, Dean! You really think we've seen everything that's out there already? You ever think just maybe there's something to all this?"

Dean turns away, strangling a wave of anger that surprises him. At Sam for being so damn gullible, for believing he could fix things. At Joshua for giving him ideas. At the fucking phone for ringing every single time he tries to get to sleep.

Sam's door creaks open, his long body unfolding in a stretch. Dean watches him cross the empty parking lot, stepping over puddles. 

Dean's memories of church are mostly of Jim Murphy's place; Jim's was the only church they went to, growing up, where they regularly stayed through the whole service. Last time Dad took them to a different church, Dean was seven. He doesn't remember much except sitting with Sammy at the front during the children's sermon.

The preacher barely got finished telling the wide-eyed kids how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead before Dean spoke up. _My daddy met a guy once who could do that_. The church was silent; his voice carried all the way to the back. _My daddy put a hole through his face with a shotgun. He won't be doing that anymore_.

There was a lecture afterwards, about secrets; mostly, he remembers having nightmares for almost a week, Lazarus in his winding sheet, hands and feet bound, stumbling into the light with the stiff gait of a zombie.

Now he wonders if the poor guy ever got a choice in the matter, if anybody asked him if maybe he'd rather rest and be done with it all.

He wonders if anybody else died so Lazarus could rise.

Sam comes back with a bag of donuts and two industrial-sized cups of coffee. Dean wraps his hands around warm styrofoam; the coffee smells old and burnt, but strong, and that's all that matters.

"Was thinking we could head up to Pastor Jim's." Sam's voice is deliberately casual, and Dean grits his teeth to keep from saying _please tell me you haven't bought into this crap_. To remind himself that he made a promise.

Sam’s still got dark circles under his eyes like he hasn't slept in a week, and Dean doesn't feel like fighting anymore. He's not sure what he believes, but he made a promise and he means to keep it and he doesn't know how. Maybe Jim can help.

Maybe Jim will know where Dad is.

*

The last time Dean saw Jim was four years ago.

It should have been an easy job, a zombie infestation some six hours out of Blue Earth. Fucking zombies. Slow and stupid and dangerous only in great numbers, and then only to civilians who don't know what they're doing. They'd always thought so, but then one of the bastards got in a lucky swing and they'd barely made it out of that barn alive. 

Dad made Dean sit in the car while they watched it burn, Dad sitting on the hood with a sawed-off on his lap and a flare gun in his right hand. Dean leaned into the driver's seat, turned on the engine and cranked up the heater. Late spring snow gathered on the windshield, burying the wiper blades. Through the drum solo of pain pounding in his temples, he could hear distant, raucous screaming.

Fucker got him worse than he'd thought; two barns lit up the Minnesota plain like torches, and through the slush sliding down the glass there could almost be two figures on the hood, jacket collars turned up against the biting wind. 

"Dean." He blinked and the door was open, cold air rushing in. His eyes wouldn't focus, a sea of orange and silver before a flashlight shone in his face. Dad's voice was sharp, urgent. "Wake up. You can't fall asleep, you hear?"

"Yessir," he managed, as Dad slid in beside him, slamming the door. After a moment, vaguely: "Should've brought marshmallows."

The Impala growled, impatient. Dad shifted her into gear and they pulled away, the barn a bright smudge against the soft white horizon. The beat of the wipers was hypnotic, smearing grey snow back and forth across the windshield.

The road was black, the center line blurred under white fuzz. The Impala's high-beams cut through the dark to show only dancing snowflakes and the dull outline of the guardrail. Dad was saying something about heading south, once they'd got Dean patched up, and Dean let his eyes drift closed, thinking about California beaches.

Someone shoved him, and he didn't open his eyes, grumbled, "Go 'way, Sammy."

"Dean." Louder, impatient, and he sat up too quickly, pain driving white-hot up through the base of his skull. "Come on, dude, stay awake." Dad's hand wrapped around his arm, clenched hard enough to hurt.

Snow crusted along edges of the windshield, but he was warm, and it could've been six years ago. Dad had told Sammy to keep him awake, that time - a wet Rhode Island summer morning. Dean remembered Sammy had piped up with a _why?_ more out of reflex than anything else.

"He's got a concussion," had been the blunt response. "He falls asleep before we get to Boston he won't wake up."

"Oh." Creak on the seat as Sam had leaned forward. "Dean. Tell me a story."

"Once upon a time -" He remembered little of that stretch of highway beyond trees through the window, blurred and green. Remembered leaning his head against the window; the glass had been cool, but he'd felt every bump in the road, sawing through his skull like a rusted blade.

"Dean!" Sammy’d been poking him, next, and Dean had slapped halfheartedly at his hands.

"Fuck off," he'd growled, but there'd been fear in Sammy's voice, and Dean had opened his eyes with a sigh. Rain sliding down the window had made the dirt-streaked glass ripple and melt. "Once upon a time these guys went on a road trip. And -"

"And what? And what?" Sammy’d been practically vibrating.

"And the little one was an obnoxious brat, so his brother shoved him out of the car and he got run over by a semi." Dean had closed his eyes. "And then the other two got eaten by monsters. And everyone lived happily ever after. The end."

"Tell me another one."

"Dude, I just did."

"Yeah, but that one was lame."

" _Dean_." Dad's voice. Dean blinked, felt cold air sliding under his jacket. When he looked up the windshield was blank white.

They were still moving, barely doing twenty, if that. Dad had the driver's side door cracked open, one hand on the wheel and one on the door handle, and he was staring at the floor. A sliver of road blurred past between the door and the floor of the car. The faint shadow of the yellow center line was barely visible. Glancing up, Dad waited for Dean's eyes to focus on his before looking down again.

"Twenty miles to Jim's place." Dad's voice was soft, and Dean couldn't tell if the words were addressed to him or not. And then, lower, nearly a whisper, "Almost home."

The snowfall slackened a little by the time they arrived, and the lights were on in the church, bright windows glowing red and blue as they pulled up out front. The slate walkway was slick with ice under the night’s new snow. Dad kept a light hand on Dean's shoulder until they reached the door.

Warm air hit them as it opened, soaked through Dean and took all his strength with it. The door swung shut behind them and Dean leaned back against the solid wood, reached blindly for the stoup set into the wall. It was empty, nothing under his fingers but cool, dry marble.

He crossed himself anyway, more out of reflex than anything else.

"John." Jim's voice reached him, down a long tunnel. "Dean." He met Dad halfway up the center aisle; Dean watched them embrace, saw Jim's expectant glance toward the door.

"Dean's hurt." His eyes were closed again, and Dad was speaking. "Zombie nest, about six hours west. Got a concussion, at least.”

"Dean?” It was Jim's hand on his shoulder, now, and he ought to say something, but his thoughts ran thick and clogged like half-frozen mud. He was afraid to open his mouth, afraid of what might come out. "Come on, let's get you warm and fixed up."

Sammy had been nine years old, blinking muzzily in the backseat as the church's lights faded behind them, when he'd told Dad he wanted to be a priest when he grew up.

Dean remembered defiance in his tone, even then, but Dad's reaction had been less hostile than merely baffled. This was barely a week after Sammy had declared, quite definitively, that he didn't believe in God - Dean couldn't recall why, but he thought there was a lecture on the Ten Commandments, and the words _honor thy father,_ involved somewhere.

_I want to be just like Pastor Jim_ , Sammy’d said, and Dad had said something about Pastor Jim being a good man and a fine hunter and Sammy could pick far worse as a role model. Dean remembered how Sammy had glared at them both, said _Pastor Jim lives in the same place all the time._

Jim's first aid kit was in the rectory office, a cramped little room with a desk overflowing with papers and a twin bed against the far wall. He always talked about getting a second one, once the boys got to be too big to share it.

Jim didn't ask where Sam was.

Dad leaned against the office door, and Dean wondered if he'd told Jim already, or if the kid had called Jim himself after -

He wondered if Dad would ask, but he didn't, just watched as Jim pulled a bandage out of the first aid kit and held an ice pack against Dean's head.

"John," Jim said gently. "Get some sleep. He's going to be fine."

Dean might have rolled his eyes - _just a knock on the head, for God's sake_ \- but he suspected even that movement might hurt too much.

The sun was rising by the time Jim let him lie back and go to sleep, to the trill of birds outside the window and Dad’s soft snoring in the next room.

The Impala was running outside the church when he woke up. The sun had dropped below the treeline. Other cars were parked by the curb, a pair of white-haired women standing by the great brazier. One of them gave him a look; he knew he should recognize her, wondered if it was her granddaughter he'd hit on that one summer after tenth grade.

He found Dad and Jim bent over a map in the narthex, talking quietly. The outer door stood propped open, and Dean leaned against it, felt the bite of a cold breeze against his back, smelled the promise of more snow on the air. Remembered a lonely farmhouse not six hours out, blood on the snow, livestock with their throats torn out and the farmer’s wife coming at him with a pitchfork, grey skin and milky eyes.

Another hour, maybe two, and the fire would be lit, _a sign of joyful hope for the world to come_ and Dean thought about stacking damp straw against the barn walls, the smell of lighter fluid splashing on the crossbeams. And he knew all the incense in the world wouldn't chase away the stench of charred, decaying flesh at the back of his throat.

The voices of the choir drifted past, rising and falling scales above the oboe's clear alto. Through the inner doors, he could see people moving about in the nave, the altar draped in white and gold.

The sky was still light when Dad picked up his duffel and slung it over his shoulder. He looked at Dean. "You ready?"

Dean offered a nod and a grunt in response, looking around for his stuff before remembering he'd left everything in the car.

Sam wouldn't pack until the last minute, as if he thought maybe this time Dad didn't mean it when he said they'd _be leaving before full dark, boys_ and then he'd waste the last of the pink and charcoal twilight arguing about it. Used to be, Dean would spend the last half hour at Jim's place frantically searching for Sam's books and his good pair of socks, as though if Sam's stuff was packed and ready to go when Dad wanted to leave, Sam would decide it wasn't worth fighting over.

"Stay," Jim said quietly. "One more night. Celebrate the Resurrection with us, and I'll refill your canteens before you go. You're in no shape to drive, either of you, until you've had some more time to rest. Whatever's out there will wait.”

When Dad shook his head, Jim looked at Dean.

Most times, they'd stay for Mass when they came through. _Wouldn't be right, to just grab the holy water and run_ , Dad would say, despite the fact that that's what they did at every other church they stopped at. But Jim was a hunter. Jim was a friend, and he knew what was really out there in the dark.

Dean had never really known God, but he'd never known Jim to lie, either. If Jim said He was real, that was good enough for Dean. But today wasn't most times. Dean and God weren't exactly on speaking terms right now. And Easter was still six hours away, and the font was empty.

Dean tapped a finger gingerly against the swollen knot at his temple. "Saw a resurrection just last week." He was in pain and he'd slept maybe four hours in the last three nights, and hell if he’d be able to stay awake through Easter Vigil, no matter how hard he tried. "Damn zombie about put a two-by-four through my skull. No offense, sir, but in this line of work I like it when the dead people stay dead."

"As stubborn as your brother," Jim said, but with affection.

"No." Dad stepped back, toward the door, a strange note in his voice. "Not Dean."

"God didn't make him leave.” Jim’s eyes were gentle.

Dad stopped, but he didn't turn around. "Boy made up his own mind. Couldn't nobody make him do shit, you know that."

Dad walked out, bedroll over one shoulder, to where the Impala waited purring by the curb, snow falling in the open trunk.

Dean managed a nod of thanks before he followed, without wincing too much. He didn't trust himself to speak. Didn't trust himself not to say, _God didn't tell him to stay gone._

*

He wakes and it's raining again, line of taillights blurred through wet glass. Sam's talking, above the static hiss of water drumming on the roof.

"Yeah." His brother’s voice sounds strangely small, with a note Dean hasn't heard since Sam was twelve and scared with a broken collarbone. "Yeah, he's gonna be fine." Dean swallows, lifts his head from where he's resting against the window, sits up and wishes for more room to stretch. "I know. I'm glad I caught you, I know you're busy -" Dean gives him a pointed look. "Yeah. Yeah, he's awake, he's right here."

Sam holds out the phone; Dean snatches it as the car lurches over a pothole. "Dad?"

Sam turns to look at him, too quickly, and there's a beat of silence, empty hiss of an open line.

"Dean, it's Jim Murphy."

"Pastor Jim." He turns away, stares intently at the window, raindrops tracking in slanted rivulets across the glass. Feels Sam's eyes still, tiny hairs prickling at the back of his neck.

"Sam told me what happened." He doesn't turn to glare, half afraid of what Sam might see in his face. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine, sir." Jim's a good man, and he doesn't know how many people have asked Dean that in the last day and a half, or how much Dean wants to punch the next person who tries.

He tries not to think _this wouldn't have happened, if Dad had been there_. Dad would have found some other way to save him. Dad would have looked into the whole thing before dragging him halfway cross the country.

Dad would've known when to say _enough is enough_.

Maybe there is a God, 'cause Jim hears what he doesn't say and changes the subject without Dean having to ask. "Sam tells me you boys are on your way up here?"

He nods. "Yeah. If that's okay."

"You know you're always welcome. I even went and got another bed, couple months back."

He hears the smile in Jim's voice, remembering, and it tugs something loose inside. "Thanks."

"You boys drive safe, now."

Dean forces a smile, knows Jim will hear it even if he'll never see it. "You know Sam, sir. Drives like an old lady."

He hears Jim snort. "Sure. And no more sticking your fingers in electrical sockets or whatever it was you did to yourself this time, all right?"

"Yes, sir."

The phone disconnects with a click. Sam's still looking at him.

"Will you watch the road?" he snaps, and Sam blinks, but he's too tired to finish the usual _you crash my car I'll fucking kill you_. Anyway, there's a distinct lack of solid things to crash into out here. Empty wet road, and nothing to either side but rows on rows of corn, husks grey-green and bedraggled.

*

Dean knew a girl back east, told him God was a watchmaker. Half past midnight in a motel parking lot outside Pittsburgh, leaning against her car as they pulled up in front of the office. Cold wind whipped blonde hair around her face while the rest of her was wrapped in a dark wool peacoat, and he wasn't sure if she was checking out him or the Impala.

Sam's door creaked open, slammed shut behind him. Footsteps on the gravel, heading toward the motel office. Dean didn't follow, stood by the car and offered the best smile he could manage.

Sam had been quiet since they left the airport, which made no sense at all. Sammy should have been mocking his supposedly-invincible older brother all the way across Pennsylvania, but instead he had that wound-tight, furious look he got when he was about to tear into Dad over some stupid shit.

Except Dad wasn't here. Dean would've let Sam go on and on about the airplane thing all week, but he was so not in the mood to listen to him bitching about Dad again tonight.

"You got a light?" He pulled out his lighter, held it for her as she puffed the end into embers. Between drags, he learned that she was a flight attendant, out of Indianapolis and stuck in Pittsburgh on extended layover, waiting for clear skies in Hartsfield.

"Did you hear about 424?" She sounded tired, frayed as he felt. "Engine cut out less than an hour out of Indianapolis." She shivered. "For about thirty seconds there, they were in free fall."

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, leaned back against the car, still-warm metal solid and reassuring. _You're my only one from now on, baby, I swear._ He swallowed, and if his voice wasn't entirely steady, well, he'd been awake the last forty-eight hours and it was after midnight. "I was on that flight."

"Shit." The end of her cigarette glowed orange as she sucked in a long drag. "Wow. Must've been - shit."

He ran his fingers through his hair, glancing over one shoulder to make sure Sam was still at the office. "Got a little freaky there, for a second or two."

Light flared around the office door, a creak and a jangle of bells. He knew he should sleep, but he was still jumpy and tense, wanted to punch something. Didn't want to fight with Sam tonight.

"Don't know about you, but I could use a drink," he said and forced a smile. He tossed his keys at Sam, turned away with a vague wave before Sam could ask where he was going.

They found a bar just across the highway, almost deserted on a Monday night. He bought her a screwdriver, downed three shots of Jack before he felt himself start to relax. "Don't know what happened," he lied, trying to remember if she'd told him her name.

If those first forty minutes had been hell, the flight back was a thousand times worse, limping back to Indianapolis while the flight crew tried to explain that everything was fine, just fine, and Dean tried not to give way to hysterical laughter.

Sam hadn't said anything at all, the whole way back. Which was just as well, 'cause Dean wasn't sure he could speak, for a while there. He'd broken down enough, finally, to ask Amanda if there was any alcohol on the plane. No complimentary margaritas on this flight - half the bottles had broken. _Going to be a hell of a time cleaning up the galley after this_ , she'd laughed shakily, but she'd found him a flask of straight vodka in the copilot's locker.

All he'd really wanted then was a .45. Not that it would've helped, but it sure as hell would've made him feel better.

Now, he downed his fourth shot and tried not to think what would've happened if any of those flights had gone down over a populated area. Tried not to think that on their worst days, demons still weren't as inventive as humans could be. Or maybe they just learned slower.

He wasn't sure how they got onto talking religion, only knew he'd been desperate to turn the conversation away from flying. She said she was a Deist; he never did quite get where the watches came into it all.

"Too much bad shit in the world to think God's here, still, watching out for us," she said, her hand in his as he walked her back to her room. Six shots down and Dean wasn't much inclined to argue with her. She smelled damn good, leaning her head close to his, and he could think of better things to do. "But the world's too complicated to be an accident."

He nodded distracted agreement, waiting while she dug in her purse for her room key. The air was cold and smelled like rain, the sky wide and starless, clouds underlit by trembling silver lightning. Too far off to hear thunder, but he waited for it all the same, counting off the seconds into silence.

She hooked her fingers in the waistband of his jeans, tugged him inside and pulled him close. She tasted like smoke and oranges.

She had a point, he decided later; whatever held her bra together was way too damn complicated not to have been designed specifically to thwart him. He could feel her laugh at his muffled curses, his lips against her throat and her hands pulling at his shirt, long strong legs wrapping around him.

He closed his eyes, heard the low snarl of thunder through the open window, felt it hum under his skin. If she could feel his hands were still shaking, she didn't say anything.

Afterward, when he found his way to their room, Sam was punching the same number into his cell phone for the fourth time in as many hours.

"Dude, give it up already."

Sam glared at him, flipped the phone shut and flung it onto the other bed. "You're cool with this? I mean, not even a fucking phone call? 'Hey, boys, by the way, I'm not dead, in case you were wondering?'"

And like _that_ , Dean could feel the warm afterglow vanish. "He wouldn't take off like this without a damn good reason."

"And you're okay with this?"

Dean thought about the last time he'd seen Dad, in a truck stop in Mississippi, separating for what was only gonna be a week. Thought about that last voice-mail - it had sounded like a call for backup, for help. Only there were no coordinates, nothing about a rendezvous. Just a crackle of EVP behind it all.

_I can never go home._

Three days, two nights and less than an hour's sleep later, the Impala roared into California like she'd run down Death itself for him, Dad's voice and _never go home_ running through his mind on an endless loop.

He'd tamped it down then, made himself believe that Dad was fine, didn't say anything to freak Sammy out. But the dark drift of worry had never lifted.

And Sam was an idiot if he thought Dean was anywhere near happy about the situation. He just didn't have the time to waste bitching about what he knew he couldn't change.

He lay awake long after could hear Sam's breathing even out into sleep, staring at the ceiling. _Make us, teach us, shape us, then wind us up and point us at the target and walk away._ Leaving nothing behind but memories and a book that held more questions than answers. Lately it seemed as good an explanation as any.

*

The sun disappears behind clouds as they cross the Minnesota state line. By the time they pull into the lot behind Jim's church, a fine misting drizzle has soaked the gravel. and the grey air meets his face like a cold hand as he opens the car door.

Sam carries their bags across the parking lot and up the steps of the rectory’s porch as the lights come on inside.

"Sam." The door creaks open and Jim meets them on the porch. “Dean. You all right?" Jim asks, studying his face in the fading light.

"Good as new, sir," he says, and ignores Jim's _that's not what I'm asking_ look as they go inside. Sam's already inside, through the door to the kitchen, and Dean knows he’s headed for Jim’s cookie stash.

"You had us worried, there, son."

Dean hides a grimace while Jim grabs a couple of shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey; by "us", Jim means "every single hunter or supplier Dad's ever come in contact with, ever", and dude, this is getting embarrassing.

Dean follows Jim back outside and they sit on the porch as rain hisses against the slate roof and moths bounce off the bare lightbulb overhead. Dean pours himself a shot, feels it burn all the way down, before he asks, "Any news from -"

Jim just shakes his head. Dean stares through the curtain of rain coming off the gutter, at the lawn sloping away down toward the creek, until Jim asks, "How are you, really?"

"I'm all fixed, sir, really. Didn't Sam tell you?" Closes his eyes and sees Layla's wavering smile. _I guess if you're gonna have faith, you can't just have it when the miracles happen._ "Sam tell you everything?"

Jim nods. Dean looks away.

"I don't deserve this," he says at last.

"None of us do," Jim says, and it's quiet, save for the rhythm of falling water. "That's kind of the point. Salvation isn't something anyone can earn."

"Don't," Dean says, and he wants to say _I didn't ask for this._ But he knows by now God doesn't give you what you ask for. God has a voicemail box, where the faithful can leave messages - _whatever you’re doing if you could get here please._ And maybe He hears them, and maybe He doesn't, but you'll never know, 'cause He won't call back.

Jim says nothing, just pours more whiskey and waits while the streetlights come on, one by one, in the parking lot. And Dean wants this conversation to be over; it feels like forever he's been sitting here on this porch. He thinks maybe he's been having this conversation in his head for the last thousand miles.

Jim just sits and waits, and for a moment, Dean wonders what it would have been like, to be the one staying, instead of always the one coming back. And finally Dean brings the words out, because Jim will wait until he does, and Dean can't go again until he gets this done.

"I go on a hunt, I want to do the job right. Kill the creature, exorcise the demon, put the damn ghost back in its grave where it belongs. And if I can't do that -" Dean stops, swallows around the words caught in his throat. "If I pray, it's that God won't let anyone else get hurt 'cause of my mistakes. And sometimes it works out that way, and sometimes it doesn't, and if you think I don't remember every name of every person who died because I screwed up ..."

The chapel bells ring out eight o'clock, warm and solemn against the grey rain. When the last tone fades, he can hear Sam moving around inside the rectory, and he lowers his voice. "Don't tell me some guy died a horrible death for me, because of what I did wrong, and expect me to believe it's _good news._ I've watched too many people die for my sins already."

Jim nods, pours them another shot. Finally, he says, “It's not the kind of gift you can take back to the store, Dean. You can throw it away, if you want, but you can't give it back."

Dean shakes his head, caught between _why the hell not?_ and _why me?_ He remembers a stack of newspaper clippings, _unexplained death_ and _apparently healthy_ and _no prior history of heart trouble._ Pictures Layla's face printed in black and white, crumpled and tossed from the car window, caught by the wind in their wake.

"Don't," he says again, softer. Jim won't push, he knows. Still, he can hear LeGrange - _a young man with an important purpose, a job to do._ The words are no comfort, but still impossible to forget. _And it isn't finished._

Sam brings out sandwiches, after a moment, a welcome distraction passing out napkins and paper plates. Sam chatters at Jim about books or something and they both let Dean fall into silence. They pretend not to notice when Dean gets up and leaves, making his way quietly across the lawn.

The chapel is empty, unlit save for the rack of candles in one corner.

Three lit votives cast a red glow onto the wall; a parishioner's prayers for an aging parent, for a child now grown and far from home? Or a hunter passing through, an anonymous memorial to a fallen comrade? Dean lights the long taper, fumbles for words.

All he can find is Latin; the flame wavers under his whispered breath: " _Sancta María, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatóribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ._ "

He knows Layla wouldn't understand; he's not sure about Marshall Hall, doesn't know if he was ever a churchgoing type. But sometimes there just aren't any words, and a guy has to borrow somebody else's, or trust that if God is all everybody says He is, He already knows everything that's important.

He lowers the taper, lets the flame touch a darkened wick, waits for it to catch. He lights a second one, the hiss of the new-born fire the only sound. The flame wavers, hesitates, then settles, and this corner of the darkened nave is a little brighter. Dean sets the taper aside, and waits, while the candles burn down and the sound of the rain dies away.

The moon has risen, half-hidden behind clouds, when he leaves the chapel. The rectory is silent, but the lights are still on.


End file.
